They're not sins themselves. They're states of mind, or attitudes that become habitual and that lead to a sinful life.

Ideas aren't sins, actions (or in the case of sloth, inactions) are sins. By living a life rife with Lust, or Sloth, or Pride or whatever it's easy to comprimise ethical integrity to habitual activities in an increasingly excessive way. No one jumps feet first into auto-erotic aphyxiation, it's a gradual increase of severity of lustful activities that gets to where you need more and more excessive pleasure to satiate your lustful desire. The same goes, in one way or another, for all of the seven deadly sins.

Plus you got to keep in mind the original meanings of these words, not what they've come to mean. Gluttony refered to excessive indulgence of pretty much anything, food, alcohol, drugs, etc. Envy isn't limited to wanting what someone else has, but wishing them ill will for posessing what you do not, and even more excessivly schoedenfreude. and Pride is simply self love, or i think a better word for it nowadays is vanity. Being proud of an accomplishment one has achieved or your kid hitting a home run isn't the same pride as the one the sins refer to.

Personally I don't really think this is a religious topic so much as an ethics topic. Sure the judeo-christain church identified these sins, the faith and the idea that these are ultimately self destructive states of being are totally interdependant. An athiest or agnostic can and usually does find wrath just as wrong as a devout catholic

I agree. These are states of mind that it just isn't healthy for individuals (or society as a whole) to be in.

Lust is not equal to sex. Lust is a “desire.” An unhealthy state of mind. You can find someone attractive/sexy (you can even waht to “hit that” ) without becoming “lustful.” Lustful would be more the state of mind of a stalker…

Gluttony is not equal to overeating. Gluttony is wanting more just to have more and therefore everyone else has less. A lot like greed. It's not a good state of mind and is a hinderance to society.

Wrath is not the same as anger. We all get angry, and there's nothing wrong with that. Wrath is an all-enveloping state of mind.

All of these things are really “modes” you might fall into, pretty close to mental illnesses… I don't know why they would be labeled “sins.” Either it's a misnomer or we have been incorrect in assuming a “sin” is a course of action when it is instead some sort of “poisoning of mind” that sets people into these unhealthy states.

Generally, the 7 sins are seen as being sin when “in excess” - these are a catholic notion, so they may not make sense to yuou unless you see them in the light of catholic teaching

but I can run through them fast:

Lust -the is of lust is the sin of obsessive sexual desire - when you lust someone, you do not love them, you reduce them from being a person to being an object of desire. Lust here is defined as sexual drives so strong they drive you to commit sexual crimes

Gluttony is an over emphasis on the desire for food and drink, or any kind of “thoughtless excess”. Whenever you get overly obsessed with one thing (like ice cream, or manga) it is gluttony. here, your desire for some pleasure has risen above your desire to do good or to be pious.

Greed is excess in the accumulation of wealth - or just an excess desire for stuff in general. Again, since a good catholic is supposed to be working on their spiritual wealth, they are not supposed to let their physical wealth get in the way of that development.

Sloth is seen not just as general laziness, but a spiritual laziness - that is, being lazy in pursuit of your own virtue, lazy in pursuit of loving god.

Wrath - hatred and Anger are seen as the source of many of the worst kinds of crimes, and not exactly in keeping with the command to "love your enemy'

Envy - essentially, the sin of Schadenfreude.

pride - Hey, this was Lucifer's sin. Pride, after all, does not have much of a place in a system ruled by an all powerful father-figure. humility is more fitting, in such a plan. Pride is excess in loving yourself.

Anyway, a quick review of the seven deadly sins of catholicism. I've never been a catholic, so your mileage may vary. But their general message - have a little humility and keep a sense of perspective - seems like a reasonable one, even to me.

I really wonder why people don't put these things in context sometimes. Look, when did people come up with this stuff? It wasn't in the 1980's guys… It wasn't even 200 years ago, it was in a time when some of those “sins” meant life or death to communities.

Lust- relationships in many ancient communities were strictly regulated, transgressing that wantonly could lead to terrible strife, death and even war, or at least feuds that could last generations. This went on to be true for hundreds of years.

Gluttony- Can you imagine it was any good for poor farming communities to have some pig hoarding and wasting everything for themselves? That could lead to starvation, strife and the failure of families. Again, true many hundreds of years later.

Envy- Something that could lead to bitterness and trouble in small communities.

Sloth- Yet again something that could lead to utter disaster.

Greed- Pretty much like gluttony in a lot of ways. Again in the context of ancient communities you're looking at something that could lead to big trouble.

Wrath- self explanatory

Pride- this is the only difficult one, but then it's not that difficult. “Pride” was not originally meant as having “pride” in achievements or oneself but rather focusing overly on oneself, obsessing, spending your energies making yourself look “great” at the expense of your community.

Yes, in the intervening millennia they've all come to have different meanings as discussed here, but in their original context they're all pretty obvious, especially if you're aware of similar religious prohibitions as in the Scandinavian religion, or Islam. They make perfect sense, they even make sense today if you go back to the original meanings but aren't so “life or death” unless you live in a subsistence outpost somewhere…

The thing is, once religion was your government, it gave you rules and laws for life and well being. Laws that made sense. That changed when religion and government started to part ways with chiefs and monarchies being more and more secular, and as the religious dictates have a bit less relevance they're interpreted more and more “spiritually” and esoterically, but that doesn't mean they're nonsense and never have or never could have any relevance. That's naive thinking. You just need a bit of historical awareness to properly “get” these things.

ozoneoceanI really wonder why people don't put these things in context sometimes. Look, when did people come up with this stuff? It wasn't in the 1980's guys… It wasn't even 200 years ago, it was in a time when some of those “sins” meant life or death to communities.

Yes, in the intervening millennia they've all come to have different meanings as discussed here, but in their original context they're all pretty obvious, especially if you're aware of similar religious prohibitions as in the Scandinavian religion, or Islam. They make perfect sense, they even make sense today if you go back to the original meanings but aren't so “life or death” unless you live in a subsistence outpost somewhere…

The thing is, once religion was your government, it gave you rules and laws for life and well being. Laws that made sense. That changed when religion and government started to part ways with chiefs and monarchies being more and more secular, and as the religious dictates have a bit less relevance they're interpreted more and more “spiritually” and esoterically, but that doesn't mean they're nonsense and never have or never could have any relevance. That's naive thinking. You just need a bit of historical awareness to properly “get” these things.

The thing is, ozone, that you're not exactly right, but you're not exactly wrong either. You're combining several thousand years of social and philosophical development into the same time frame. In the most primitive times, relationships weren't as strict as all that. Men had many wives or mistresses in order to raise a bigger family faster and therefore be able to defend themselves from other families who might want to kill them and take their stuff. Gluttony and Sloth were signs of prosperity.

When the seven deadly sins were identified it was long after we'd past that “life or death” stage, and we had the leisure time to sit around and think about why things were the way they were. And people were able to identify what brought about personal downfall, and not in just a spiritual sense, but in a real, as you put it “life or death” sense. Sure gluttony was an issue in that it took food out of the mouths of the hungry, but in the center of a prosperous Athens where people had the time to sit around and think about geometry rather directly worry about where they were going to get their evening meal that wasn't so much of an issue as that the consumption of food or drink becoming a distraction from activities that would ultimately better oneself, like art or math or philosphy. You could identify a person's life as being so existential in this was that it truly was meaningless.

Cecil identifies the seven deadly sins arising in their current form around the fourth century. He doesn't really differentiate whether its BC or AD (CE if you perfer) but either way, that's long after there are strong societies the a definate middle class.

No the sins weren't a warning to prevent social disruption, they were a warning to prevent individual downfall.

King, I'm not thinking about cavemen here, the sorts of issues and ways of thinking about them directly applied to people in the 4th century very much so. :) Relationships were ALWAYS regulated, (but not as we think about it now), even in what we think of as the most “primitive” ethnic groups today or have discovered in the past 300 years or so. You should have spotted that from my references to the Viking and Islamic laws which were from even later dates, (the Vikings especially so).

Examples like Athens are rather exceptional and a bit silly. The sorts of people with leisure time there are what we'd consider a wealthy few, even with the superficial mythology of the fabled “democracy”, and by it's very notoriety you can see that it was a rather unusual situation in comparison to what was happening in other countries at the time, what happened before, and what occurred for many hundreds of years later.

It seems that you're projecting today's values on to the past, which is an amusingly 19thC way of thinking… There are still small communities today that have strict codes that arose from laws of survival. But I think I've spotted your error: The idea that civilisation evolves… That's another old one, but rather classical so its understandable. Yes, we do often learn from ideas of the past, but the reality is that we're the same people as we were since we came out of the caves, while cities and communities can grow and flourish, all the tough issues and harsh aspects of life are still there where they've always been. Just because you and I don't suffer from them now and we can look back at examples of people 200 years ago in the past, flouncing around living the good life in palaces who didn't suffer them either, that doesn't mean that millions then and now are not still at the level where such realities truly matter. And as it is now, so it has always been, despite bright spots like Athens and urban Rome.

-But to make myself clear though, I don't say they were codified by people who had the intention of setting down rules for people's lives, I say that's how they took the forms that they did. The codification and spiritualisation of those ideas happened long after they first arose (as with my other examples), but that doesn't mean they didn't still apply to people of that time and even now in their raw simple essence, especially when applied generally rather than individually.

Now to talk more about myself, I've actually broken a lot of rules in my life. Take for instance, the “7 Deadly Sins” I've done them all in excess, and am proud to mention most of my accomplishments.

Lust - This one was the easiest to talk about, I've been in a relationship where a girl was involved with someone and could possibly have been considered married (although, in another instance, I did bang a married chick a few times but it wasn't a relationship) This was truly evil. I knew it was wrong, yet I kept doing it. I almost feel bad, but I honestly was in love with the chick and I think she loved me too, she may have just been confused. I am proud of myself though, and I quote her the day she ended our relationship, "the other day when we had sex, I went home and had sex with , and I felt so slutty. You have given me the self confidene to work out my problems with him. I think its kinda funny, actually.“ That is a near EXACT quote.

Gluttony - In one day, I've eaten: Two large pizzas. A large bag of doritos. Three bags of popcorn. A full box of ice cream ”push ups“. I also have eaten entire packages of candy (resse cups, in the big 12 or 10 pack) all on my own. For whatever reason, that day I was hungry.

Envy - This is the one that is near constant. Everyone has stuff better than me, even the kids on TV who need pennies a day have something I don't have. They have pennies a day for doing nothing, constant television exposure, and they interestingly never age. I'm envious of EVERYONE, at all times. No exceptions.

Sloth - Solitary confinement would be nothing for me. I actually managed to lay in one spot and not move (even to use the bathroom, I just went) for a weekend.

Wrath - This one I'll mention to examples. Physical - At one point, for whatever reason, a biker thought he would start some shit with me at a pool hall. I can't play pool, but I love to bullshit, so I was doing ”joke shots" and this guy got mad at me an threatend me with violence (I think he had a knife) if I didn't straighten my shit out. I guess he bet money on me. For some reason, I exploded like a volcano on the fucking guy. I took the pool que, and I hit the 6'4 at least 250 lb biker across the face with it, and then Mortal Kombat sweeped his legs out from under him, gave him a flurry of stomps (like the guy in Menace 2 Society), then pummled him with the que breaking it. The guy later apologized and became a friend of mine. The guy was big into motorcycles and almost had me talked into doing the biker thing for awhile. But thats another story. The moral here, do not fuck with me. If you think you can threaten me, I'll fucking hit you with anything I can grab. I just don't tolerate bullies. Thats not to say if six guys came at me with knives that I wouldn't run like hell, I've ran away from trouble more than once. Just don't start any shit with me period.Another one is emotional - I've cut people down emotionally to the point of tears or panic attack level. People get upset when they talk to me, because I don't bullshit people. I'm blunt, and I don't care what I say. Often people think they can get me and then I bust them better than Eminem gets that guy at the end in 8-mile. I've ruined relationships with fights that absolutely have made girls flip out in terror. I'm brutal with my words (as you can tell from my attitude here) I feel that people shouldn't be pussies and cry over everything that sort of bad happens to them. I'll take a negative trait of a person and run it into the ground like an internet meme.

Pride - I am the greatest. I am the king of multi-media. Nothing can compare to my greatness, and those that are better, I will find a way to stop you. If you're reading this and read the rest of this article, I've succeded in proving my awesomeness. I am great.

Hahah, finally my sporadic selfstudying can be used for something! Yaye.

Actually, if I remember correctly, that strict dividing into those seven haven't been the norm of all ages. In ye olden days there was eight at some point. The seven mentioned here and an additional kind of sloth so that lazyness vas divided as physically and mentally lazy. And you guys (and girls) have it easy, there's more or less an accepted seven. Where I come from there's several versions of what the seven are and it's not just differences in naming. That can be troublesome if you're talking about them with somebody who has a “different set” than yours.

But, to get back on track, there's several people who have argued that the seven deadly sins have turned acceptable and even encurraged. I've tried too but found that I could only do it for some of them. What's interesting is how much people can focus on this add-on to the bible. Basically the seven was used to sell those letters that could instantly free you from having to suffer in purgatory (Or something like that. My memory isn't the greatest. They have a name too, but I don't remember it either).

And my personal opinion? If we need seven deadly sins then they should be reinvented to fit better with todays standart. But I still find it strange that so many non-religious persons can have so strong an opinion about something that is, basically, a very religious thing. I do too…

ozoneocean-But to make myself clear though, I don't say they were codified by people who had the intention of setting down rules for people's lives, I say that's how they took the forms that they did. The codification and spiritualisation of those ideas happened long after they first arose (as with my other examples), but that doesn't mean they didn't still apply to people of that time and even now in their raw simple essence, especially when applied generally rather than individually.

Ozone, my point was that while often time you're absolutely right about the origins of biblical codes of behavior, in the case of the seven deadly sins, thats not specifically where they're from. The seven deadly sins aren't “old testament.” I wasn't' refering to “caveman times” when I mentioned things like Lust and Gluttony being positive characteristics I was refering to OT biblical times. “I'm going to kill you, and take your stuff, and sell your sons to the pharoah so he can build his giant triangle shaped coffin” was a prevalent attitude for a long long time. Things like the commandments were absolutely put into place by a ruling clergy that wanted to keep it's town in line. But not every code of behavior we have was created with that intention (eg the beatitudes.) The seven deadly sins were developed much more recently than that. The reason I bring up the example of Athens and Rome is that most of our thought from that time period comes from those few wealthy cities. Thats where people wrote stuff down and where there were libraries. Sure occasionally we find classical philosphy that was from some monk in east gish, but it's rare, and isn't the case with the seven sins.

The seven deadly sins were put in place with the intenetion for individual growth, not social growth. They're post beatitudes. They're developed in a time period where people as a whole are becoming more interested in personal salvation. They're not as old as you think.

King, the caveman thing was a throwaway remark. You misunderstand me… The Time periods I mentioned for my examples of the Viking lore that's similar to the Christian “sins”came from around the 8th Century and The Islamic ones are what? 4th? 5th? That's all AD man, more recent than 300AD for the Christian sins.No way! My point about them still stands.

SysliBasically the seven was used to sell those letters that could instantly free you from having to suffer in purgatory (Or something like that. My memory isn't the greatest. They have a name too, but I don't remember it either).

Indulgences. They got you out of Purgatory or punishments in the earthly life (bet there was a lot of buyer's remorse on those).

SysliAnd my personal opinion? If we need seven deadly sins then they should be reinvented to fit better with todays standart. But I still find it strange that so many non-religious persons can have so strong an opinion about something that is, basically, a very religious thing. I do too…

I've actually thought a lot about this (even though I'm not religious), and I think they could be updated. It's a bit of a pet project of mine. Although, I guess you could say Gilligan's Island already did that ;P

ZeroVXStacey, if what you say is true, why not just say “be humble and kind”, instead of saying that this is bad, and this is bad, and so on? In other words, why not be positive instead of negative?

Their actually not the “seven deadly sins” it's the “seven capital vices” but seven deadly sins ‘sounds’ better. There is also the seven holy virtues but people don't care about them as much. They are Chastity Abstinence, Liberality, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, and Hunility.

So the short answer is they DO say “this is good and that is good” but people tend to focus on what they should not do more than what they should do.

Lust: Reliable rapist/stalker generator.Gluttony: Potential cannibal generator, will detract from the food that poor people can eat, makes you lardyEnvy: The things people will do to get what they want…. And the things they want… geez.Greed: Goes hand-in-hand with gluttony, just not limited to food.Pride: Nothing exactly sinful about it, but it really makes people douchebags.Wrath: “I'm angry and angsty. I want to kill someone. RAR!” *kills someone*Sloth: Prevents DD members from updating their comics! :cry:

Waitaminit! Zirnitra, are you satanist? You sure sound like you support those ideas…

But this is off-topic, back to the seven deadlies of Christianity. I had written down the passage that goes into a lot of detail of the sins, I'll see if I can find them again, it was a pretty interesting read.

I have to say, what Zirnitra posted on the christainity sins and the satainist sins makes total compete sense.

some of the “sins” of Christainity isn't always so bad.

After all, sometimes all it takes is a small dose of envy/greed to really moviate some people into doing good things that they wouldn't otherwise do. By good things, I mean things like actually conburiting to society in a big postive way in thier jobs, etc. Sure, it'd be only so that they could get enough money to buy some things that they proably don't need, but it's better than the alterivate. otherwise they may just sit around at home doing nothing. And they would say: “Why bother to work or even go outside to conburite to my community? I'm perfectly happy with everything I have here, even if I basically have nothing. I can just live off the gorvenment checks to surive. So I think I'll just stay in this house for as long as I can without even going outside!”

And… I must admit that I've felt very wrathful towards certain people and oraginzations. So many times I have thoughts about how I'd like to kill those people who has made thing much worse when they were SUPPOSED to make things better! But I have turned those wrathful feelings into something postive by rallying to make support groups, etc, as an attempt to counter all the bad that certain people and oraginzations have done. So you could say that I'm using my anger at how messed up the world is, as fuel for my postive actions.

And man, I do totally agree with Stupidity being an major sin. Too many times I've heard of a ton of deaths being caused by one person's stupdity. And to make things worse the stupid person wouldn't even take responsbity for the fact that thier stupidity had litterally killed people. They're like: “Duh….I didn't know if I did that or this people would get killed!! It's not totally my fault!! I just didn't know.” Or even worse: “I knew it would kill, but I choose to do it because I thought that I was totally better than all those doctors/whatever who warned me about the dangers.I thought I knew better and knew how to do it safely, even though people said there was NO safe way to do it.” Deaths caused by stupdity is competely different from deaths caused by accidents, trust me. So, yes, Stupidity should definely be an sin.

I'm on hitatus while I redo one of my webcomics. Be sure to check it out when I'n done! :)

zirnitraYeah, and pretty much just not wanting to wake up in the morning is slothful, and honestly, who isn't like that every morning?

Morning people, (like me!) besides, if you didn't want to get up, you may as well be dead :) Anyhoo….

zirnitraIf you do not envy what someone else has, you will not try to get it. If you don't try to get it, you don't do anything productive, which would lead to sloth.Envy, lust, and greed are the driving forces for motivation.Simply wearing more clothes than required to keep you warm and covered is to be guilty of pride.As far as gluttony goes, gluttony is just eating more than required to stay alive. Not to mention even the most die-hard Christians overeat on Christmas.

Envy mean not only that you wish you had the object of desire, but that the other person DIDN'T have it. Envy is not the only motivation a person can have and it can just as easily be motivation to do something wrongI'm sure there are a lot of people who disagree with you on the point of pride, it is in fact modesty, not pride, that keeps you covered, just ask any Muslim wearing a burka or hijab. Pride would be “if you've got it, flaunt it”.BUT I will say this for you… you got me with that Christmas thing. Damn, and Easter too.

Eh, pride can also be more all about the clothes… it doesn't always equal showing more skin.

for example, if you were overly prideful about your social status in life, your money, and most imporantly, your VERY expensive clothing… then of course you'd want to wear MORE of your clothing even to the point of covering yourself in your 1-million-worth outfit!

I believe that was what Zirnitra meant… the pride of flaunting off YOUR clothes for the sake of fashion, not the flaunting your body part.

I'm on hitatus while I redo one of my webcomics. Be sure to check it out when I'n done! :)